let my silence be enough (to cover what I feel for you)
by reminaissance
Summary: "Mama always used to say that her love could hold up the world..." post Frozen 2 vignette. Anna cradles a broken heart as she chooses to let Elsa go. Angst with little comfort. Inspired by the song "Mountains" by Charlotte Day Wilson.


_So what can I say but I'm hoping; the hour will still turn to golden; and we will see the sun as it's supposed to be; shining straight through to you and me._

—Charlotte Day Wilson, "Mountains"

**...**

Mama always used to say that her love could hold up the world.

Some days, Anna believed this—it wasn't that hard when it came so easily—. Some others, she feared it could be too overwhelming, like a flood, encompassing without second thought everything about the people she loved.

Her sister always told her that her love was her gift. That she was a star, like the Sun. That her light—ever so ardent—could reach every crevice cast in darkness and her love, envelop; like the warmth of a summer afternoon.

But sometimes, too, she wondered if this wasn't enough. If perhaps her light did not shine far enough to reach the coldest confines of a person's heart, or if her love was not great enough to stand as a promise of its own. Because perhaps if it were, this aching inside of her would still be a thing of the past.

From the balcony of the castle Anna stood looking out at the fjord. Its waters were placid, the gusts of wind only enough to caress its cold surface. She stood there as the monarch she now was, mighty... alone. Anna, Queen of Arendelle. It still tasted foreign in her tongue; a title she never expected to have.

The breeze picked its pace for a brief second and with it, Anna inhaled. Let her be brave like her father, she prayed to the winds. Let her be compassionate like her mother and eternally wise like her loving sister.

Her eyelids tightened still, her hands gripping the edge of the balcony as she sent out a last prayer.

Let her be strong enough for this.

Behind her, the door opened, leaking in the joyful sounds of a celebration she wasn't willing yet to join—and what an irony that was, that she would have given anything three years ago to have an excuse to celebrate—. It opened cautiously and without having to take a look, she knew it was her sister. No one opened a door so quietly, so mindful of _everything_. It always made Anna smile.

She turned around at last and despite herself, her heart took a leap. Elsa looked so beautiful under the light of dusk.

"They keep wondering where you are," Elsa said. Like a magnet, she drew nearer.

"Not you?" She asked her softly.

Her sister tilted her head and gave her that smile Anna has never seen directed at anyone else. "I knew where you were."

"You always do," she murmured.

"Can you fault my heart for knowing?"

She wanted to ask her not to say those kinds of things. Not tonight. Not when this felt like separation and sorrow kept tugging at her heart, because every breath that passed; every second; every minute signified one less with Elsa here inside these walls.

Was it too much to ask? Was it wrong of her to want to spend the rest of her life with Elsa by her side?

In the faintest of gestures, she watched her open up her arms—and what a wonder that still was. It had taken her sister some time to learn the tender act of touch, but while she was scared at first to be the cause of any harm, Anna gave Elsa her all. Until she learned—_truly_ learned—that the only thing stopping her from loving Anna was fear.

Because in the end, their embrace was supposed to mean nothing less than a promise to always be each other's haven.

Anna sighed and Elsa hugged her tighter. Must you do this? She wanted to ask her. Why can't you just _stay_?

But Elsa had asked and Anna had said yes. Yes to being a queen; yes to letting her go. She would have said yes to anything Elsa had requested, even if that meant following her to the ends of the world.

"Come with me," Elsa whispered in her ear, tugging at her hand as her magic formed a bridge in the air, connecting the balcony to the shore.

Anna followed her in silence. To the ends of the world, she thought with rueful solemnity.

They sat on the trunk of a fallen willow tree they found soon after the thaw. For three years, it became a frequent spot for them, like a brief isolation from the world; a pause in the forlorn inevitability that is time.

They sat in silence, holding hands and looking out at a view that had become solely theirs. Up on the sky, night was beginning to paint away at the colors of dusk.

"This crown keeps itching for some reason," Anna muttered after a while.

Elsa chuckled lowly and squeezed her hand. "Do you want me to throw it off a mountain, too?"

Anna giggled as her head fell on her sister's shoulder. She missed her already.

If only she could beg Elsa to stay (because the sky without its aurora could be no sky at all), but the serenity in Elsa's eyes stopped her from uttering a single plea. The greatest thing that Anna had ever hoped for her sister was finally here, and that was her happiness.

She'll visit, Kristoff had told her. Friday charades and some family dinners. It will be okay. But how could she tell him that she longed for her sister like she had never longed for anyone else? How could she explain the unexplainable: that Elsa was her solace and no one could ever take her place?

"I should get going," Elsa whispered.

"Can't you stay?"

Elsa turned to her and gave her a smile. A ghost; unfathomable. It was faint and nostalgic, and Anna felt tears prickling her eyes. "Kristoff... he'll want to spend some time with you."

Anna nodded dejectedly and stood up with her.

From the depths of the fjord, Nøkk soon appeared. Ever so imposing, Anna kept having to remind herself that this was not a horse but an immortal spirit in the shape of one.

Elsa then bowed before her, lifted up her hand, and brought it to her cold, soft lips. "My Queen."

_Please stay..._

Anna forced a smile despite the tears that threatened to fall as she watched her sister ride across the bottomless blue of the fjord, her blonde hair dancing with the wind and that unmistakable look of quiet joy in her eyes. She rode until Anna could only see a speckle of white, like a single snowflake in the nighttime sky.

The walls of her chest tightened around her heart but it wasn't until Anna lost her to the horizon that she allowed herself to succumb. Her knees hit the ground just as her tears began falling across her cheeks.

Anna, Queen of Arendelle, weeping alone on the shore of her kingdom's fjord.

Her love could hold up the world, her mama had said. But it could also break her own heart.


End file.
